The present invention relates generally to a dispersion of a metal salt of an acrylate in oil. The disclosure also relates to rubber compositions comprising the metal salt of an acrylate in oil dispersion. Further, the disclosure generally relates to golf balls comprising a rubber composition having the metal salt of an acrylate in oil dispersion and methods of making the golf ball.
The game of golf is an increasingly popular sport at both amateur and professional levels. A wide range of technologies related to the manufacture and design of golf balls is known in the art. Such technologies have resulted in golf balls with a variety of play characteristics and durability. For example, some golf balls have a better flight performance than other golf balls, in terms of initial velocity, spin, and total distance.
Golf balls are conventionally made from various types of materials. The material selected depends upon the play characteristics desired for the finished golf ball. For example, a golfer may want a harder golf ball to provide maximum distance when struck by a driver or long-iron. In other instances, a golfer may want a softer golf ball to control the spin of the golf ball with shorter irons. The materials selected affects the play characteristics and feel of the golf ball.
The process of making golf balls sometimes is made difficult by the materials selected for specific components of the golf ball. For example, when rubber materials are selected, processing aids are often required to assist the blending and curing of a rubber composition. The processing aids added to rubber materials may be difficult to disperse uniformly throughout the rubber composition. In addition, some processing aids are difficult to process due to buildup on equipment or loss of materials through fly off during the processing of the rubber material. Thus, significant stresses are placed on processing equipment resulting in less efficient methods. Further, loss of starting material due to fly off not only results in a more expensive process for making a product comprising the starting material, but also introduces an imprecision or inaccuracy in the amount of starting material that remains in the product.
More specifically, rubber compositions may include a crosslinking agent such as a peroxide free radical initiator. Rubber compositions containing such a crosslinking agent also include a co-agent. Zinc diacrylate is one such co-agent.
Zinc diacrylate is a pulverulent that can be problematic in the preparation of the rubber composition. Due to typical particle size of this pulverulent, zinc diacrylate has a tendency to fly off into the environment during mixing resulting in loss of zinc diacrylate. The loss of material during processing requires that more material than is necessary be included in the mixing device, which results in a more expensive process.
Further, zinc diacrylate has a propensity to stick to the metal parts of the equipment. This problem is known as plating out. The loss of zinc diacrylate due to fly off or plating out introduces unnecessary challenges to the preparation of rubber compositions. The use of zinc diacrylate results in a process that is less efficient and possibly more expensive.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for improvements in the processing of rubber compositions.